Tina Knowles Reveals Battle With Low Self-Esteem After Divorce

Features

Tina Knowles served as the keynote speaker for the Texas Women’s Empowerment Foundation’s eighth annual Women & Money luncheon in Houston last week, and her speech was nothing short of inspiring. Sharing her life story, Beyonce’s mama chronicled her transition from a poor childhood, to businesswoman, to mother of an international superstar, to 58-year old divorcee.

Beginning with the story of her roots in Galveston, TX, Knowles recalled her experience as a servant in a Catholic church. “I became a warrior at five. I refused to let them take my spirit,” she said. Little did she know that spirit would come in handy in dealing with her split from Matthew Knowles after 33 years of marriage.

“I was very sad. When you look at someone else, you look at them and say, ‘They’re attractive. They have a lot of good stuff going on for them. They have no right to have low self-esteem. They have no right to feel sorry for themselves,’” she told the audience. “Well, it doesn’t matter who you are, what you are, what you’ve done, what you you have. You’re a person, you’re a human being. And when something strikes you like that, it takes breath out of you. And my fight came back. After a while, I let myself feel sorry for myself for a minute and then I said, ‘You know, I’m so blessed to have all the opportunities that I have. And I don’t have the right to feel sorry.’”

Knowles shared her battle with self-esteem following her divorce, and that she had lost sight of who she was. Dealing with a new start and a very public scandal, she talked about how she decided to zero in on herself.

“So I would tell my kids, ‘You know what, you can call me and I’ll be there if it’s something important, but otherwise, I’m taking care of Tina. This is my selfish moment,’” she said. “And before I knew it, I started liking me again! I started being important, not everybody else.”

After regaining her confidence, Knowles experienced yet another obstacle in dealing with her ex-husband being remarried. She spoke about choosing to surround herself with friends while having to plan a wedding herself just a week later. She also revealed that she still considers Matthew her “family.”

“I hear that my ex-husband is getting married. Now this is my family. My ex-husband is my family. I don’t want to get back into that at all, that’s not what I want. But it still hurts a little bit, right? It’s still a blow to your ego,” she said.

Now in a new relationship with Richard Lawson, Knowles also share that she had been friends with the actor for over three decades before they began dating. After being apprehensive about taking things to the next level, she gushed about the current state of their romance.

“It’s been now a year and five months and I’m in a committed relationship with that handsome man. And I’m in my happiest I been in a long, long time,” Knowles gushed.

The point of Knowles’ personal take on the hardships she faced, however, all served a greater purpose in the speech. She capped off her very intimate keynote with a word on overcoming that just about anyone can go to church with.

“If you are going through it, just know it’s called “going through it,” you’re not going to get stuck there, you are not going to die, you are going to survive.”